Patent Application
20090133639
This invention relates to a pet toy, comprising a body structure provided with a plurality of retaining compartments presenting openings, arranged to enable hiding and retrieving of objects therein.
There is a strive in today's society to be able to provide an environment that is more and more optimized from a viewpoint of the pet. This can for instance be seen in the recent development of different items specially adapted for pets, for example food, clothing, etc. Also the mental health of pets has been more and more put in focus. One aspect that has been under development is the need of stimuli to pets, especially pets living in urban environments presenting a limited amount of mentally stimulating objects. It has been identified that many pets, especially cats and dogs, can acquire positive mental stimulation in conjunction with toys. However, the existing kind of toys of today are limited and often also either rather expensive and/or difficult to combine/use in modem homes.
It is an object of the invention to present a new kind of toy pet that practically and easily can be used, without risk of causing damages, in modern home environments. This is achieved by means of a toy pet as depicted in the amended claims.
Thanks to the use of flexible sheets the toy according to the invention does not present any hard parts that could cause damages, e.g. scrapes in the floor, etc. and does therefore also present a kind of toy that is easily stuffed away in different kind of spaces. Further the design provides for a toy that may be produced very cost-efficiently. Moreover it is also easily transported. Finally, tests have shown that it presents a toy that is surprisingly much appreciated by many pets, e.g. cats and dogs.
Further advantages according to the invention will be apparent from the description below.
In the following the invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings, wherein:
In
In embodiments that have been successfully tested, the following materials were used; fur fabric, pile cloth, plush, fleece and different kind of woven fabrics of thicker kind, preferably 3-20 mm thick, more preferred 5-12 mm. The width/diameter of the bottom layer that has been tested and worked well, ranges from 400 mm to 1200 mm, wherein the decrease of the width from one layer to next layer on top thereof has been in the range of 30-200 mm, preferably 50-120 mm.
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Further due to using square layers 10, 11, 12 and the positioning of the hems 50, 51 there will be formed openings 3 provided with tabs 30 protruding beyond a line 20 joining the attachment points 50A, 51A for neighboring edges of each layer. (the line 20 is merely indicated for one part of the top layer 12). These tabs 30 make it easy to open up the opening 3 that exists for each one of the pockets 2, 2′, facilitating hiding of objects 4 within one or a plurality of the pockets 2, 2′.
The toy pet 1 is used in such a manner that it is positioned onto a substantially flat surface, e.g. the floor, which thanks to the use of soft and flexible materials makes it easy and lenient to use in any home environment. Thereafter a tab 30 is easily lifted by means of gripping it to position an object 4, e.g. a pet candy, into one of the pockets 2, 2′. As many objects 4 as desired may be hidden/put into the pockets 2, 2′, where after the pet will have to be active both physically and mentally to identify and eventually get hold of the object 4.
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The invention is not limited by what has been described above, but may be varied within the scope of the appended claims. For instance, the skilled person realizes that it is also foreseen that squared/rectangular sheets may be combined with circular sheets, that the amount of layers may vary (e.g. merely two, or as many as ten), that many different combinations of cloths may be used, etc.
